It hit me like a tsunami at one hundred miles per hour. A thought that gripped me, raking my heart with fear.
Fear and dread and guilt. Fear of the future. Dread of what I might not be able to do. Guilt of all I haven't done.
One of my really good friends was in the hospital recovering from a brain tumor. Another of my friends, a man I respected and looked up to, suddenly died at a young age.
And that's when it hit me.
It made me cry, because I knew I was guilty of taking Life and people for granted, for mindlessly breezing through the days, without even taking time to stop, enjoy the little things and realize how much I needed the people around me.
The thought that hit me so hard, grinding a hole in my heart was a thought that was familiar. It was a thought which all of us have heard a thousand times, one that we have been taught to keep in mind. But as it hit me that day, I knew I had never quite understood it.
That thought was this: Life is short.
A simple sentence. A sentence that makes you say, duh, Melissa, I know that.
I thought I did too. But when a sixteen-year-old's life suddenly comes to a screeching halt and he lies in a hospital bed with a brain tumor; when a father leaves so many behind, longing to be with him one more time; when a twenty-nine year old decides to end her life instead of living the last stretch of it because she has stage four glioblastoma multiforme; it hits you so hard it takes your breath away.
And suddenly, in one moment, you understand. Suddenly that three-word phrase makes an incredible amount of sense.
When it hit me like that, all I wanted to do was tell everyone how much I love and appreciate them. I was struck with fear and guilt, because I suddenly saw in myself the tendency to take people for granted. I knew I loved them, but did they know I loved them.
It took the feeling of people I loved slipping away to make me see how much I took them for granted.
I want to change. I don't want to wake up and find someone gone, leaving me to wish I had told them I loved them. I know it won't be easy and a change like this doesn't happen overnight. But every day I can choose to not take people for granted.
We don't know the hour or the day. Death can be a sudden occurrence, leaving us shell-shocked and dizzy. Every moment of Life is a gift that can be taken away. So in the moment it slips through our hands, I don't know about you, but I want to be ready.
That's why I choose to see Life as a gift from the greatest Artist of all. That's why I choose to slow down and live. That's why I choose People.
